They were supposed to catch the SuperShuttle from BUR to Glendale and then surprise my sister at home, but their flight ended up being two hours late. So my nephew called his 16-year-old brother to tell him that they were delayed and to keep Mom at home. Only younger brother then told his mother why she had to stay home. D'OH!! (He's a good kid, but sometimes he's not exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier -- knowhutahmean?)

So, the beans spilled, my sister drove over to BUR to pick up eldest son and family, and she ended up surprising them instead as they entered the baggage claim area after deplaning.

Anyway, despite the flubbed plans, their arrival still made my sister's holiday. She was hosting Christmas dinner with my younger brother and his family, so she had a full house this afternoon and evening. Tomorrow they're all going to Disneyland.

I suspect this will become a tradition as these drones are the coolest things -- but this one will never fly again.  

According to various media reports, Tenet backed President Barack Obama's health reform act and has seen its revenues rise from it. Bush's involvement with Tenet could give ammunition to conservatives in the GOP who view him as too moderate -- particularly those who despise the Affordable Care Act.

I can't help but get a chuckle out of this. In normal times, Bush would have left Tenet because it's a big, soulless corporation that's paid fines for Medicare fraud and been criticized for dodgy tax practices at the same time it was beefing up executive pay. A man of the people who aspires to the Oval Office can't afford to be associated with this kind of dirty money. link

Basically, it's about whether police bodycams will help resolve disputes about what really happened in encounters between cops and civilians. There are reasons to think their effectiveness will be limited because even with video evidence, we tend to interpret ambiguous events to fit our preconceived biases. This is similar to the way sports fans interpret instant replays of penalties in ways that favor their home team, and it goes under the generic name of "motivated reasoning."
...
...And it turns that motivated reasoning happens way earlier and is even more unconscious than we thought:.
...
Before reading this study, I would have assumed the effect of cultural cognition But GBST's findings suggest the dynamic that generates opposing perceptions in these cases commences much earlier, before the subjects even take in the visual images. link

I am skeptical about using the cloud. iCloud seems no better protected from hacks a than any other cloud service. So, I am looking for something with heavy encryption that requires me to only memorize one master password.

I am totally Apple. MacBook, iPhone, iPad. So, i would something that works with all of my devices.

The defense ministry in Seoul claimed that sudden military provocation by North Korea was possible at anytime.  The ministry also said that North Korea now has the capability to strike the US mainland as well as South Korea and Japan.

South Korea and Japan each have separate intelligence sharing agreements with the US, but there is no pact between Seoul and Tokyo due to Japanese colonial history and disputes over territories.  An attempted agreement was aborted in 2012 at the last minute because of South Korean backlash.  The environment for the agreement is hoped to be more conducive this time.

In other news, the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has indicated a continued quest of his right wing agenda to change the Japanese constitution in place since 1945.  Article 9 renounces (forever) war as a sovereign right of the nation.  Due to the hurdles to such a change, Abe has re-interpreted Article 9 to allow for "collective defense" to engage militarily if forces of an allied country are attacked.  

The US has long worked on improved relationships with North Korea with, perhaps, the most promising results associated with Secretary Madeline Albright's unprecedented visit (Oct 2000) with Kim Jong-11 in Pyongyang.  Secretary Albright was the highest official to visit North Korea.

Kim indicated that he was ending testing of Taepo Dong-1 balllistic missile and the progress made led to Mme. Albright's recommendation that President Clinton visit Pyongyang before the end of his term to continue work on improved relations.

Clinton, on December 28, 2000, announced that he would not go owing to insufficient time to complete the work; Sandy Berger, his national security advisor, indicated that the presidential election dispute impacted the decision given the "potential constitutional crisis."  At the time,  there was disappointment in some quarters, feeling that an opportunity was being missed--if only to keep on with dialog and negotiations.

I don't know why, but I find this hack(s) totally fascinating. Just sitting back ( two months after a serious breach of my 'company of 1' cyber breach and the many late night hours spent to try to get that malware off my laptop and my desktop with my 'computer guy' and after having to cancel my credit cards since this info was in danger after the security breach).

I cannot hardly believe that a major corporation, which should employ serious security IT people, and the United States government simply say they "believe" that the nation-state of NK is responsible for 100% of the hack(s). I mean WTF?? Do they WANT to inflame some situation?  

Even to me, a 'so non tech' person, can easily see that this is way more complicated than some simple blame thing. I feel like this is re-visiting 2002-3 when W said that 9/11 and AQ was all Sadam's fault and then the US had to invade Iraq.

link

 I have pretty good sized piece of  leftover prime rib (about 2 1/2- 3 lbs). Googling, I get lots of conflicting advice on the best way to reheat without overcooking. Some say slice into serving portions; others say  keep whole; Some recommend low temp oven, some high heat. Others say heat in a pan on the stove or even in the microwave.

  It came out perfectly yesterday-- rare and juicy. I'd like it as rare as can be achieved after reheating (I have no leftover au jus for it).

  Any tips?

What if wasn't North Korea after all?

In the controversy over the Sony hacking, government officials have accused the sequestered communist country of hacking Sony, but security analysts argue Russian hackers may be the culprit.

Writing samples from hackers claiming responsibility for leaking finance reports and emails by Sony employees suggest the native language was Russian, according to Taia Global, a cyber security consulting group.

"Our preliminary results show that Sony's attackers were most likely Russian, possibly but not likely Korean and definitely not Mandarin Chinese or German," the Seattle-based company wrote in a Christmas Eve blog post.

In astrology this is a time where barriers/borders do not mean what they have meant for the las several thousand years. Change is happening - and it is happening very fast (like a kid's 'growth spurt' which can happen overnight then no growth for the next 6 months or so then another 'growth spurt'). Yes, Capt H we should very much pay attention to our personal cyber security. No, we americans do not know for sure who (or multiple whos) hacked Sony. Or for what reason(s). And one more thing about astrologers - they are all idiots (and I do not say that lightly since I study it) but they are just as traditional as anyone else - including Jim. Online popular current events astrologers are just like a liberal Jim's website.

Nation states are not the only rulers any more (think AQ and IS - not nation states yet very powerful). Individuals (and not just large groups of individuals) can cause large waves of change (think Eric Garner etc etc). The nation state of the USA wants so deeply to blame the Sony hack on some other nation state. But what if this was done by a couple of people who are NK nationals living in LA or India or wherever. NK hones their hackers and sends them all over the planet to be educated. This (these) hack(s) could have been done by a couple of brilliant teens. Truly.